The post sunset glow of smoke from a fire in the Jemez northwest of Albuquerque.

The thermometer mounted six feet off the ground in the middle of the property measured 105º F (40.6º C) this afternoon and the thermometer on the deck read 103ºF. Whether or not either were accurate, it felt like 105º when I was out moving hoses around in the middle of the day.  Spunk finally talked us in to letting him outside into the big free world beyond the catio yesterday. He stayed out and explored most of the day Friday. This morning, he saw Rosencrantz doing his morning catnip roll through the bay windows in the kitchen and asked to go out. I let him out and about 10 minutes later I walked by the sunroom and noticed all the cats gathered by the French doors. I walked over to see what was going on and I saw Spunk chasing the mournful kitty through the labyrinth. After they made the forth lap that I saw, a went out and said "Spunk? Why are you chasing the mournful kitty in circles?" Spunk stopped, fully poofed and looked at me. I walked over to him and he growled at me, but he let me pick him up. I took him back inside. He was quite proud of himself. He went back out with Laurie, and then while I was at the postoffice, she said he demanded to come back in. I think it was getting too hot for him out in the cold cruel world.

Spunk on his first day outside working out on the benchpress (photo by Laurie).

The Rio Grande is down to normal levels about two or three feet below what is was running yesterday.

Orange skies to the south after sunset.

Red sky after sunset from smoke.

The Average White Boys have been at it again and produced another music video. This one started with me turning Inchcock’s woeful Friday into verse. His line “I was in great pain, and yet high spirits” inspired me to paraphrase various aspects of his woeful day in verse that would somewhat go to the Beatles “A Day in a Life” and I called it “A Day in the Life of Inchy”. I put the verse together quickly as a comment on his blog, and since I hadn’t listened to the original song for awhile, the words generally fit to a loose tune in my head. After I posted my verse in his comments section, I listened to the original song and realized I had forgot the last verse. Silly me or “Tsk!” as Inchcock would say.  Then I started trying to fit the verses to the music, modified them, got very ambitious and put them to music. “A Day in a Life” is not an easy song to sing, especially for a non-singer like me, so making the “Day in the Life of Inchcock” parody was quite difficult for me, but it was a very good exercise in attempting to do my talking/singing style, and a good technical exercise in that it took 4 tracks to come up with the final version — one with the music and three vocal tracks to make everything work and sound the way I wanted them to given the many limitations of my vocal ability. It works pretty well for parody (you can follow along with the words below the video).

A Day in the Life of Inchcock

A Day in the Life of Inchcock
Music by the Beatles
Lyrics by Timothy Price

Great pain, high spirits today oh boy
A lucky man standing by the Methodist Church
I think I should be rather sad
But I just had to laugh

I took the photograph
Out the window, mind you houses and cars
Off to Sherringham for shots, so quick, times have changed
Nicole the nurse she just stood and stared
Trying to stop my blood
Was this really it
Was I off to see the Lord

A Whoopsiedangleplop today oh boy
The phone went off a dingling and a dangling
T’was the nurse bitching about my ambling
‘You’re not in your Flat?’ 
And you don’t have the book
I’d love to turn you Down

Got back, had a Weeee!
Refreshed, and accident Free!
Got back out front and had a cup
Door bell rang and I noticed it was late
It was the Nurse she had no hat
Up the lift in seconds flat
She had a firm, tight end that was smokin’ hot
She poked me in the tummy and I came out of my dream…

Great pain, high spirits today oh boy
Four thousand holes poked in me tummy there were
Although the holes where rather small
I couldn’t count the lot
We still don’t know how many holes it takes to fill old Inchcock

I'd love to turn you Down

New Mexico has been referred to as "Tamalewood" for all the movies and hit TV show filmed here. These women on their galloping horses after sundown, could be right out of a Tamale Western.

Spunk and Marble in all the cuteness. 

Never trust a man in a straw hat driving a 1926 Chevrolet

The dream seemed real enough at first, the guy in the straw hat with the 1926 Chevrolet could have been any classic car collector with his car at a car show. But then I asked him about his car and other cars he had. He said he collected military vehicles, and that the 1926 Chevrolet was just a magical car he’d picked up along the way. He invited me to take a closer look at the “Bugle Boy” horn on the side of that 1926 Chevy — that’s when the dream changed from plausible and plunged into surreal.

The Bugle Boy Horn

When I took a closer look, it sucked me through its coil.

I landed on a giant machine gun mounted in a 1952 Willy's M38 Jeep

Or perhaps I had been scaled down in comparison to the 50 caliber mount.

I could see my self hanging on one side.

Then the other side.

I swung my feet over to the pole that held the 50 cal.

And managed to climb down the ammo belt.

I jumped off the jeep, and turned around to face an angry looking Hummer. It's smooth looking, "No Hand Hold" tongue felt rough against my face. As I struggled to free myself from the surreal, and drag myself back to something real, I woke to Lola licking my face.

A one second exposure

Crawfish or Crawdad, whichever you want to call it

Bullfrog

Four horses hangin' in a field

Three disappeared

The horse that was left turned and fell to the ground in an instant

Rolled around

Sat up

Rolled some more

Sat up again

Got up

Shook himself off

Went back to grazing in a cloud of dust

The dust cloud moves on and he continued grazing alone

I gave lyrics inspired by my new shoes and Spunk to the Average White Boys to see what they could do with them. They teamed up with the Glenn Miller Orchestra playing music by Harry Warren, and they all piled into my darkroom, did some mysterious development, and emerged with the new single The Cat That Ate My New Shoes. The music is great, the words are fun, but the voice leaves a lot to be desired; however, the single fits well into the notion of Off Center & Not Even.

I had to make a video with the music file in order to add it to the blog, so I added several appropriate photos of the kitties as visuals for the song. I’ve included the words below the video incase anyone wants to sing along.

The Cat that Ate My New Shows

The Cat That Ate My New Shoes
The Average White Boys

Music by Harry Warren, performed by Glenn Miller
Words by Timothy Price

Pardon me Rose 
Are you the cat that ate my new shoes
Cost me twenty nine
A real bargain on line
You say it was Spunk 
Spunk’s the one who ate my new shoes
Afforded one pair I had nothing to spare

I set ’em over there ‘bout a quarter to four
Back an hour later and they weren’t anymore
He ate them over there
Spunk consumed the pair
Now he’s upchucking pieces everywhere

When I heard ‘ol Spunk hacking eight to the bar
I knew my shoes they hadn’t gone very far
But good old Spunk
Reduced them both to chunks
Oh no! Cat that ate my new shoes there you are

There’s not gonna be 
A reason for a celebration
Leather and Lace
I think I made a funny face

I’m gonna cry
Until you promise to never chew
So cat that ate my new shoes
Won’t you leave them alone

Digging up a walnut tree in my good shoes

I've worn out all my shoes and boots (the newest pair are over four years old) and they are all starting to hurt my feet, so I finally found a pair of new shoes I like, and I have new boots on order. Until the new boots come in, I'm gardening in my good shoes — and walking on the ditch banks in my good shoes — and walking in the bosque in my good shoes — and walking everywhere in my good shoes — I think I'm already wearing out my good shoes along with myself.

Circle garden

Mermaid

Mermaid

Wildflowers with roses and bamboo in the background

Mermaid

First Cosmos

First bloom on Chitalpa

Black bamboo with new green canes

Mia, who has Copper Cranes blog, and I were discussing the green backs on the hummingbird, and I mentioned that their feathers look like scales. I looked for a post with these photos of a hummingbird feeding on echinacea to refer Mia to, and realized that I had never posted them because I took the photos in July 2010 before I started this blog.

Hummingbird and cotton hovering over the clearwater ditch

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Intense glow after the sun had set

Afterglow long after sunset

Moon trying to peek through the clouds

I saw this juvenile Great Horned Owl moving around before he saw me, so I was able to get pretty close to him before he flew.

He flew over to a cottonwood with a broken branch.

He watched me as I walked up closer to where he was perched.

Once I got close enough, he eyed a new spot to fly to.

From his new spot deeper in the bosque, he looked back at me with a "Don't you ever give up dude?" look.

This shot was taken right before he flew off into the trees where I couldn't see him.

This shot is for reference, as this is how dark it was, and what I could see with my naked eye and through the viewfinder. I set the camera so the recorded images are much lighter and more detailed than you see here, and then I process them and crop them in Camera raw to get the exposure, color and detail to look as good as I can get it to look given the limitations of ISO 3200 under very low light conditions.

The sunset from yesterday evening.

The sunset tonight.

At first she didn't seem to mind the camera — S and circle pose

While out on my walk on the river, I came across a little Western Hognose snake. She was about 16 inches long and wanted to get away, but I kept pulling her back and making her pose — being somewhat of a fashion queen she got into several great poses for me. However, she finally got fed up with me not letting her get away, and went into her drama queen, throes of death, you killed me act by rolling over on her back, opening her mouth and letting her tongue hang over to the side. She was really trying her best to make me feel bad about make her pose for the camera.

A close up of her head shows the beak on her nose that gives them the name "Hognose" snakes

Another lovely pose with her tongue out

She got fed up and started to curl up tightly

She flipped over in the throes of death — killed by the pesky paparazzo shooting her with his camera.

She rolled over once, dragged her tongue on the ground so it had sand on it to be even more convincing.

She rolled upright looked around to see what the paparazzo was doing.

She finally decided I wasn't a predator, and started crawling toward the edge of the ditch bank.

Another view of her crawling off to safety from the pesky paparazzo.